Wednesday, May 08, 2013

John Milbank's article on same-sex "marriage" has an interesting implication for the libertarians who profess to stand for individualism but don't think traditional marriage is important enough to defend. One of the central ramifications of Milbankian thesis is that marriage is an essential buffer between the individual and the state--a buffer, in other words, necessary to protect the individual against the state.

Libertarians (who often pose as conservatives) have been among the first to flee the fight for marriage. They think that all they need to adequately defend individualism is, well, a defense of individualism. What they don't realize is that by abandoning mediating institutions like the family, they are unwittingly countenancing the deterioration of institutions as mediating institutions. And insofar as the mediating role of institutions like marriage is compromised, the less of a buffer exists between the individual and the state. And, since in any brute confrontation between the individual and the state the individual ultimately loses, the libertarian social agenda (or lack of it) ultimately endangers the very individualism they purport to stand for.

But taking gay marriage as one of a number of general devotions of a progressive class, we see an overarching commitment to weakening and ultimately rendering wholly “voluntarist” any intermediary bonds that exist between individuals, of equalizing, rationalizing, and “liberating” the individual from chance, contingency, and unchosen obligations. Liberal theory has long struggled with the brute natural basis of families and child-bearing, the human association most closely grounded in nature, and hence, not easily subject to the liberal logic of individualistic voluntarism, on the one hand, and primary membership in the State, on the other. Milbank points out that gay marriage is a deepening of an already pervasive technological remaking of these elemental relationships.

69 comments:

KyCobb
said...

One problem with the plausibility of this conspiracy theory is that it flows entirely from the imaginations of conservatives and there isn't the slightest shred of evidence to support it. Assisted reproduction was developed by medical researchers as a result of demand from infertile couples and has been almost completely neglected by the state, which has also been unsupportive of marriage equality until quite recently. So it would behoove the believers in this conspiracy to identify the Dr. Evils behind this grand scheme to create an all-powerful state through fertility treatments and marriage equality and provide some evidence to show this isn't just another paranoid rightwing fantasy.

The state always has the authority to pass laws protecting civil rights; I don't know why you would think it doesn't. No-one is going to force you to acknowledge anyone's marriage, as long as you don't engage in illegal discrimination.

> The state always has the authority to pass laws protecting civil rights; I don't know why you would think it doesn't.

Because authority means just that: authority. If the state, as you have argued before, cannot authoritatively rule SSM out because of the U.S. Constitution, then it follows it cannot authoritatively rule it in, doesn't it?

It's simply echoing a humble, "Me too". Since (in your argument) the U.S. Constitution holds the all the aces, and politics is after all a zero-sum game, that means the states must be holding kings at best.

> No-one is going to force you to acknowledge anyone's marriage, as long as you don't engage in illegal discrimination.

Puh-leeze. We've been through this before. What separates marriage from live-in status is the conferral of societal approval on the relationship. That is the salient issue, and it's why SSM advocates do not want some jerry-rigged "civil union" proclamation. As the Clinton campaign might say, "It's the public affirmation, stupid."

It's not enough that they are free to form their own unions. Life just isn't fulfilling until everyone is forced to acknowledge it as valid.

> I don't know what you mean by you being forced to acknowledge same sex marriage. What specific act do you think you are going to be compelled to perform?

As a member of society, if society blesses SSM, then of course I'm joining in at some level... even as you and I both join together in supporting the institution of elections, even though we don't always approve of the results. Even when we didn't vote for the guy who won, we acknowledge and respect the institution and respect the results, even when we don't respect the corrupt SOB who won.

But at a personal level, when they pass SSM, I won't have a choice but to respect SSM. If I make wedding cakes and still don't approve, tough.. make a SS couple a wedding cake or get sued. Same if I'm a hotelier. Same if I sell insurance. Same if I'm a wedding musician (which, actually, I was for several years).

If your response is, well, you still don't have to approve, you just have to comply... then you miss the point of what approval means. Sure, I can always be unhappy about it on the inside. Just like, if President Bush had passed sedition laws (like Wilson did), you would have been free to oppose Bush's war policies... so long as you didn't speak up about it. With freedom like that, who needs subjugation?

> p.s. Thanks for responding; Martin's blog gets boring when it just sits here for days with nothing new.

The first amendment will protect your tight to express your disapproval of ssm. Also, few places in Kentucky prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. In a democracy, we all have to accept the fact that the government is going to support some things we personally disapprove of. Freedom in the context of a self-governing society doesn't mean we all get our own way on everything.

> The first amendment will protect your tight to express your disapproval of ssm.

You still don't get it, or are acting like you don't. If I have to respect SSM in any way, then I have lost my right to disapprove of it, my right to not recognize it as valid.

Reduced to its essence, that is what SSM is: a demand to have SS relationships recognized as legitimate by the government and society at large. It's not mere tolerance: something is required of the rest of us.

If nothing is required, then it would be sufficient for SS couples to live together and leave me and all the others who do not recognize the relationship as valid out of it completely.

> In a democracy, we all have to accept the fact that the government is going to support some things we personally disapprove of. Freedom in the context of a self-governing society doesn't mean we all get our own way on everything.

I never said otherwise. But nothing says I have to accept it all lying down, without putting up a fight.

Yes you can put up a fight, but its a futile one. The overwhelming majority of young Americans support marriage equality, and 12 states and D.C. have already recognized it. You might as well fight to ban milk drinking because you're lactose intolerant. Why not just don't do what you don't like and allow other people to do what they like when it doesn't harm you?

> Yes you can put up a fight, but its a futile one. The overwhelming majority of young Americans support marriage equality.

And I suppose the overwhelming majority of young Americans must be right about this issue since they're right about everything else.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of young Americans value the institution of marriage so much that more and more of them are refusing to engage in it. Gays will be marrying each other just as the institution of marriage itself vanishes into the night. But think of the splendid ceremonies!

Another institution down, another notch on liberalism's holster. Makes you proud, doesn't it? In the near future, the institution of the family, long a thorn in the side of overbearing, overreaching government extending its power over children, will effectively be dead. The dream is to have the wise and benevolent state dictate the parameters of child-rearing, pushing back against the stupidity and superstition of parents. For everybody. It's not enough that North Korea has Paradise all to itself.

Well. I can console myself. I don't have children, and by the time the overwhelming majority of young Americans have succeeded in changing the world to your specifications, they're the ones who'll have to live with the results.

As I've pointed out before, this conspiracy theory is particularly silly. If heterosexual couples decide not to marry, it won't be because LGBT people can marry. The median age of marriage has been going up since 1960, decades before anyone was even thinking about same-sex marriage. Likely factors causing the decline, while obviously not including ssm, probaby do include women becoming less dependent on men for income at the same time that employment opportunities for low skill males have declined. But go ahead and indulge your paranoid fantasies; its what keeps the base voting to redistribute the nation's wealth to the 1%.

> As I've pointed out before, this conspiracy theory is particularly silly.

In case you haven't been paying attention to the news, this has been a particularly bad week for people who don't like conspiracy theories.

> But go ahead and indulge your paranoid fantasies

Even paranoids are right once in a while. Look at Europe. With a birth replacement rate of less than 2%, the great socialist eschaton will succumb to their rapidly growing, and seething, Islamic population within the next generation or so.

And that's the direction liberals are trying to take us.

See if the Muslims will accept gay marriage. Approval??! See it the Muslims will even accept tolerance and coexistence with gay people.

Some conspiracies are straight forward and actually have, like evidence to support them, such as long questionnaires sent to Tea Party groups by the IRS. Let me know when you have a document from the Dr. Evil plotting to get heterosexuals to quit marrying by allowing LGBT people to marry. And excuse me if I don't panic when you say SCARY MUSLIMS!!!

It has always amazed me that liberals who will swoon in fear and terror from a Southern Baptist have no fear at all against Muslims.

You'd think a socialist-atheist-egalitarian-gay-rights person and an authoritative religion that still stones homosexuals and women who were raped would have little in common.

But they do share enmity for the Biblical Lord and His people. I guess that's enough.

And regarding my "paranoia", the Constitution simply isn't what it used to be, and by the time Christians need the First Amendment, it will simply have "grown" and "evolved" to mean something different than protecting the freedom to worship.

The IRS was even asking a pro-life group in Iowa about the contents of their members' prayers.

If they can get away with that, we can dismiss any help that might come our way from the Constitution.

I don't fear Southern Baptists either. I respect everyone's right under the 1st Amendment to hold whatever religious belief they want, no matter how nutty; its worked pretty well so far. And in case you haven't noticed, the IRS hasn't gotten away with it. The Constitution has been working pretty well for the last 150 years, so I wouldn't give up on it yet; its a shame that cynical manipulators have planted these paranoid fantasies in the minds of so many conservatives about these fantastical plots to subvert democracy. They are just trying to keep you scared and angry.

> And in case you haven't noticed, the IRS hasn't gotten away with it.

That remains to be seen. If they can get away with saying, "We're sorry," then they will have gotten away with, and we will be able to expect more of the same from now on.

Somebody has to go to jail. Maybe several somebodies. Maybe several higher-up somebodies. There has to be payback, and it has to hurt, and it has to be imprinted on the minds of federal officials that you respect the people, or this can happen to you too. Otherwise, what we're seeing today is just a sneak preview of what is to come.

That's why North Korea can happen here. We're the same species of human beings who also run North Korea, and also ran the gulags of Siberia and the killing fields of Cambodia. What has protected us, so far, has been the strength of our institutions. That strength is being sapped as the institutions are going down, one by one. How did Germany, within the course of one century, go from being the most civilized country in the world to proprietor of human crematoria? Germany, after all, had been the European country that American Jews had remembered most fondly, as being the one that had been the most hospitable toward Jews.

Destroy some institutions and add some bad philosophy, plus time, and that's all it takes. We're no better people than Germans or North Koreans or Chinese Communists. We have just enjoyed better institutions.

Liberals are so busy advancing civilization that they don't take care to avoid stepping on the things that maintain it.

> its a shame that cynical manipulators have planted these paranoid fantasies in the minds of so many conservatives about these fantastical plots to subvert democracy. They are just trying to keep you scared and angry.

Well, gee, I respect your intelligence too.

I don't suppose there are any cynical manipulators who preach that the government is the be all and end all of all things good, are there? Why, not at all, I'm sure.

Sorry, Ky, but this is a very bad time to be telling us we're indulging in paranoid fantasies. This persecution of conservative groups by the IRS has been going on since 2010, and has been far broader and deeper than generally reported. Conservative groups have been complaining about it. What have our wonderful watchdogs in the news media been doing? Yawning. Nobody was interested.

If, say, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU and Common Cause etc. had been similarly harassed by the IRS under Bush, I think the media just might have been a little more interested. But as long as it's conservative freedom being squashed, that's okay with many liberals. Hell, even Al Franken and some other Democratic congressman were *urging* Obama to unleash the IRS on conservative groups.

So I'll hold onto the "paranoia" for a while. It's obvious we're not all on the same page.

The conservative groups weren't taken seriously until the inspector general's report was due to come out, and the IRS took a proactive hit by admitting it in a press conference before the report was released. And then how did they release that information? By a planted question. How ridiculous is that? That's not how honest people reveal unfavorable information. That's an attempt to defuse a volatile situation, not a fessing up and taking your lumps.

I will admit, I would feel *less* "paranoid" if the IRS commissioner had not been telling *obvious* lies.

Nothing to see here, folks, just lower-level civil servants with an increased workload, trying hard to be more efficient.

Baloney. Over-worked bureaucrats don't seek to add paperwork to their jobs, they seek to subtract it. They might tend to rubberstamp applications -- accepting some with little scrutiny, and rejecting others with same.

But they wouldn't be submitting extensive and instrusive questionaires or going so far as to tell groups who they shouldn't protest or ask them what they're praying about. That's not the signature of someone responding to being overworked. That's more like someone on a mission.

> "Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers."

> Information the IRS demanded from the Coalition for Life of Iowa. Asked if that's an appropriate question to a 501(c)(3) applicant, IRS commissioner Steven Miller says he's pained at his inability to answer.

> Coalition for Life of Iowa found itself in the IRS’s crosshairs when the group applied for tax exempt status in October 2008. Nearly ten months of interrogation about the group’s opposition to Planned Parenthood included a demand by a Ms. Richards from the IRS’ Cincinnati office unlawfully insisted that all board members sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket/protest Planned Parenthood.

From what I have heard, some liberal groups got similar treatment. And I'm sorry, this isn't exactly "persecution." Political advocacy groups actually aren't supposed to get non-profit status, and conservatives have complained about liberal groups getting it in the past. Clearly, if Tea Party groups were being targeted for scrutiny by liberal IRS agents, that was wrong. But its a very far cry from Nazi Germany, the President denounced it, and people's careers have been ended for it.

In regards to the questions about prayers, that was clearly inappropriate. As far as paranoia goes, it doesn't even begin to support a theory that liberals are demons bent on the utter destruction of American democracy and imposition of a totalitarian state. Our democracy survived Nixon and Bush/Cheney; it will survive the non-profit scandal as well.

> "Some 471 conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status were harassed by the IRS over a period of years, and our self-styled watchdog media played no role in bringing this injustice to light. It only became a scandal after the IRS publicly admitted its wrongdoing.

> "Attorney Cleta Mitchell represents a number of Tea Party and conservative groups—including many that sought and still haven’t been granted tax exempt status. Mitchell notes that overwhelming evidence of the IRS’s political targeting had long been public. The IRS was so brazen that last year “80 or 90 groups all got letters that are virtually identical, that are oppressive, with 30, 40, 50, 70 questions with parts and subparts and sub-subparts,” Mitchell told The Weekly Standard. “The Ways and Means [subcommittee] on IRS oversight held a hearing, and they asked about all this. Did the press do anything about it? No.”"

Liberals care very much about their constitutional rights and those of their mascot groups.

> "The IRS absurdly insists that conservative groups were not singled out for ideological reasons. But we know that one of the criteria for determining which groups got extra scrutiny, offered up by the IRS with no apparent sense of irony, was a mission that involved “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Frightening stories of IRS intrusiveness are trickling out. A Tea Party group in Ohio reports that the IRS “wanted to know what materials we had discussed at any of our book studies.” One educational group in Tennessee was asked to turn over the names of all the high school and college kids it had trained. A pro-life group was asked to submit a letter in writing saying it would not protest Planned Parenthood."

Singling out groups that educate the public on the Constitution. I suppose if you belong to another group that steps all over the Constitution, that makes sense.

If liberals don't want conservatives to be paranoid, they need to quit doing, you know, fearful things to them.

Ky, you spend a great deal of prose defending hypothetical, arguable civil rights that were never even conceived of twenty years ago. I.e., SSM.

Here's an issue, today, that has been unconstitutional from day one: a federal agency targeting people based on their political and religious beliefs.

Yet all you have done so far is to dismiss it as "inappropriate" and continue to insist that those conservatives who are concerned about shut up, quit inciting others, accept the "apology", and go back to believing that this is an aberration from the normal "we're the good guys" governance.

You even bring in Bush and Cheney, who never did any such thing. As if it's relevant. Conservatives are suspicious of big government, period. It was too big under Bush, and too big under Obama, and getting bigger and bigger.

Of course its illegal. Under the 1st Amendment, government has exactly zero business asking people what they are praying for.

"The constitutional rights of conservatives? We've yet to see it."

President Obama denounced the practice and people have lost their jobs. And Bush was the Conservative's President when he was in office, enacted the Patriot Act, and torturing people. If you think answering a questionnaire is a shocking constitutional violation, try being waterboarded repeatedly.

"Destroy some institutions and add some bad philosophy, plus time, and that's all it takes. We're no better people than Germans or North Koreans or Chinese Communists. We have just enjoyed better institutions."

Well, I don't think Germany instituted ssm in the 1920s, so I'm not sure what traditional, nongovernmental institutions we have that were stronger than theirs that you are thinking about. The difference is that Americans have been governing themselves nearly four hundred years, and Germans had little experience in self-government prior to the Weimar Republic. I know that in your mind there is a clear path from ssm to heterosexuals not getting married to totalitarianism, but I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to what that path is that actually makes any sense.

I'm glad we have some basis for agreement on this issue. Relieved, in fact.

> President Obama denounced the practice and people have lost their jobs.

That's good for a start. People need to go to jail over this.

> If you think answering a questionnaire is a shocking constitutional violation, try being waterboarded repeatedly.

You might be right on this issue. Maybe I haven't worried enough, in times past, about the constitutional rights of people who are not Americans, who are enemy combatants, who have killed Americans as terrorists or assisted those who did, who have dedicated their lives toward overthrowing the Constitution that they claim for protection. It's a distinct possibility.

But none of that is muddies the water on this issue. This is good ol' domestic terrorism, by the government, on peaceful American citizens whose only crime is speaking out on issues that those in power wish they wouldn't.

And sending questionairres is where things like this start, not where they end. When the IRS starts asking any questions, it brings intimadatory powers. They can ruin anyone. They can ruin any business. They can hound you to your death. The Furies of Greek mythology have nothing on them.

So saying, "Gee, we're sorry" doesn't come close to cutting it. You try saying, "I'm sorry" as your defense to the IRS if they ever come poking around in your business. See how far that gets you with them.

> And Bush was the Conservative's President when he was in office

And you really don't understand conservatives. Conservatives endured Bush. We did not like him, and he didn't like us.

> Well, I don't think Germany instituted ssm in the 1920s, so I'm not sure what traditional, nongovernmental institutions we have that were stronger than theirs that you are thinking about.

I'm not limiting "institutions" to non-governmental ones. And maybe Weimar Germany didn't think of SSM. It's probably the only thing they didn't think of. It was and is famous for its decadence.

I was thinking, though, more of the gradual loss of religious belief in Germany, of the growth and popularity of bad philosophy (Marx, Heidegger, Sorel, Mussolini) and anti-Semitism (Wagner and his son-in-law, the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain), the weakening of the German Monarchy and the power vacuum that was left, and the same influences creeping into the arts (Bertoldt Brecht, Kurt Weill).

> I know that in your mind there is a clear path from ssm to heterosexuals not getting married to totalitarianism...

I can't tell whether SSM is a the lead-in or a late-blooming result of the destruction of the institution of marriage. It's an ongoing thing, going at least back as far as the "free love" and "open marriage" ideas of the Sixties and Seventies. The weakening of Christianity has made a lot of this acceptable. SSM seems almost like one last kick at a twitching dead horse of an institution.

But yes, institutions like marriage have been a check on the power of government. As long as parents hold some sort of authority over their kids, that's authority the government can't wield themselves. Just read an article about a German family who came to America because they were being persecuted in Germany for home-schooling. Looks like we're going to deport them back to Germany, where he will be fined or imprisoned and the kids taken away. In this country, social services hold a lot of political power and can make life miserable for ordinary parents. Same game, different level. Destroy the institutions.

> ...but I have yet to hear a coherent explanation as to what that path is that actually makes any sense.

It's the left-wing playbook. All rivals to government power have to be undermined and destroyed.

"It's the left-wing playbook. All rivals to government power have to be undermined and destroyed."

In your imagination, Lee. I recall that your explanation of how ssm would destroy heterosexual marriage was that it trivializes marriage so people will quit getting married. But that only reflects your personal contempt for homosexual relationships. Young people think homosexual relationships are of equal worth as heterosexual relationships, so in their minds marriage equality enhances rather than degrades the institution. And since they are the ones who will be getting married in the future rather than geezers like us, their opinion counts a little more. There are still a couple of million marriages performed in the US annually, and the divorce rate has dropped over the last thirty years, so the institution isn't exactly dead yet.

With about two million marriages a year, the institution isn't in trouble. And there is no reason to believe that marriage equality will have a significant impact on the marriage rate for heterosexuals.

> And yet, as of December 2011, just 51% of all American adults were married and 28% never had been, down from 72% and up from 15% in 1960.

Dunno about you, but that seems like a problem to me. Especially when you consider how much more likely children without fathers in the home are to grow up in poverty. Or how important it is that we have children.

> And there is no reason to believe that marriage equality will have a significant impact on the marriage rate for heterosexuals.

That's a different argument, and a harder one to disprove, granted. You should have led off with it.

"Dunno about you, but that seems like a problem to me. Especially when you consider how much more likely children without fathers in the home are to grow up in poverty."

Well, I think the causation is reversed. People aren't poor because they aren't getting married; they aren't getting married because they are poor. Timothy Noah in the New York Times has an interesting article about the two sources of income inequality. The one that has gotten all the attention is the growing gap between the 1% and everyone else, but there is also a growing gap between the college educated and those who aren't. Private sector labor unions are nearly extinct, so men with high school degrees don't get raises and can't support a family. IOW, I don't think liberalism is nearly as big a factor in the decline in marriage as free market conservatism is, and if we want non-college educated women to view non-college educated men as viable marriage partners, we need to figure out how to make msnual labor pay better. Educated people are still marrying each other and staying married. Blocking marriage equality won't help because it didn't cause the problem in the first place.

Anyway, this is an example of the kind of misdirection the GOP establishment engages in. Their primary, almost only, concern is redistributing more of the nation's wealth to the wealthy. Lots of people are concerned about the decline in marriage rates. The GOP wants you to focus on something which didn't even cause the problem, homosexuals, instead of the stagnation in wages for blue collar workers, which the GOP's real constituency caused and likes, and which actually makes men with high school degrees virtually unmarrigeable.

> Well, I think the causation is reversed. People aren't poor because they aren't getting married; they aren't getting married because they are poor.

I disagree about the causation. I think things are more complicated. Would the same people who are poor today have been poor before the family began its final descent into oblivion?

And I can't see how it can plausibly be blamed on capitalism. Surely the costs of higher education, which have far outpaced the growth of the economy -- mostly due to administrative bloat. If colleges had to compete for money, you'd see less of that. But you can't blame capitalism for the state of our colleges. Last I heard, they get a lot of federal and state money.

> Their primary, almost only, concern is redistributing more of the nation's wealth to the wealthy.

> President Obama denounced the practice and people have lost their jobs.

Maybe your information is more current than mine. But last I heard, precisely one person has been "fired", namely the former IRS chief, who says he was about to step down anyway, and still gets his pension... and still isn't in jail.

And last I heard, the O administration is still defending Sarah Ingram, the woman who was in charge of who was in charge of the tax-exempt division of the IRS at the time it was targeting conservatives.

They have no intention of punishing the IRS people who basically did what they were encouraged to do, unless their feet are held to the fire.

"Would the same people who are poor today have been poor before the family began its final descent into oblivion?" No, because in the post-war era, about 40% of the workforce was unionized, which gave blue collar workers the ability to negotiate for higher wages.

"And I can't see how it can plausibly be blamed on capitalism. Surely the costs of higher education, which have far outpaced the growth of the economy -- mostly due to administrative bloat. If colleges had to compete for money, you'd see less of that. But you can't blame capitalism for the state of our colleges. Last I heard, they get a lot of federal and state money."

The inequality isn't being caused by fewer people going to college; more people are going to college than ever. When blue collar workers had negotiating power, people could get a decent paying job right out of high school. Since the decline in labor unions, blue collar wages have stagnated, and the portion of corporate income going to capital rather than labor is higher than ever.

"> Their primary, almost only, concern is redistributing more of the nation's wealth to the wealthy.

And Obama has stopped that, exactly, how?"

When he had a House majority, he got Obamacare passed which will provide significant benefits to low income Americans, and he did negotiate a slight tax increase on the wealthiest Americans at the first of the year. His ability to pass additional legislation has been stymied by the GOP House majority. He also has the power to stop the Ryan budget (which he hasn't had to exercise since the Senate won't pass it anyway) which would grant massive new tax cuts to the rich paid for by eviscerating domestic federal spending, especially on programs which help the poor.

> "Would the same people who are poor today have been poor before the family began its final descent into oblivion?" No, because in the post-war era, about 40% of the workforce was unionized, which gave blue collar workers the ability to negotiate for higher wages.

With all due respect, you don't need information on the economy so much as an education, which unfortunately I don't have the time to provide. I'll just leave you with this: what were the first states to become "rust belt"? The union states, or the non-union ones? Which state is in bigger trouble today? Free-shop Texas or unionized Michigan?

> When he had a House majority, he got Obamacare passed which will provide significant benefits to low income Americans, and he did negotiate a slight tax increase on the wealthiest Americans at the first of the year.

He also continued giving big subsidies and bonuses to Wall Street. But the question is, how much has he equalized wealth? And what has it cost? You may have noticed that the economy still stinks, after, what, four, soon to be five, "recovery summers"?

Before this is over, Obamacare by itself is set to destroy great numbers of jobs.

But I know where to come for a brief synopsis of Democratic talking points, now. I keep forgetting CNN's URL.

But you're doing pretty much what Obama is doing, with all these scandals springing up. All of a sudden, he wants to talk about the economy too.

many employers did flee to states more hostile to unions, so they could pay less. That was part of the process of deunionization I was talking about. Texas has hordes of poor people, and more uninsured people than any other state. I expect Obamacare will create jobs, because of all of the money that will be flowing into the healthcare industry. States which accept medicaid expansion, fortunately including Kentucky, will receive billions in federal funds providing them an economic boost.

> Texas has hordes of poor people, and more uninsured people than any other state.

Don't forget to add, "...and the most prosperous state now during this new era of hope and change."

> I expect Obamacare will create jobs

You are going to be so surprised when even the official unemployment rate climbs past 9% again.

> States which accept medicaid expansion, fortunately including Kentucky, will receive billions in federal funds providing them an economic boost.

And like Lucky Charms, billions in federal funds are magically delicious, and appear with zero cost to anyone else, anywhere. No taxes, no new borrowing, nobody has to pay -- just happy Kentucky campers with their magic new jobs, a smiling leprecaun, and life is good.

I can't tell if liberals can't understand economics, or won't. But here's a clue if you really do want to find the economic Waldo some day: GM, Ford, and Chrysler weren't part of the rugged Michigan landscape, just sitting there, waiting to be discovered. They weren't a force of nature that we managed to harness. We didn't take them from the Indians. They weren't present in the atmosphere in trace amounts and somehow we managed to solidify them.

There were created by folks like you and me, during an era and an economic climate when creativity went relatively unpunished, when economic processes could be worked out relatively free of federal bureaucrats looking over your shoulder and issuing directives, when someone who was unconnected politically had a chance to make a fortune in a part of the economy that was not the government nor pandering to it.

The notion that Detroit was well-to-do because of the unions displays what would be an amazing lack of economic awareness if I didn't see it every day. Henry Ford was nobody's idea of a humanitarian, yet he was the first automaker to pay his employees what at the time was the princely wage of $1 a day. But even if there were some truth to what you're saying, the unions did not build GM, or Ford, or Chrysler. The cart goes behind the horse.

Liberals take the economy completely for granted. And are thus surprised when it doesn't respond to their tepid ministrations. I read somewhere that, according to some of his advisors, President Obama was getting more and more frustrated during his first term at why the economy was still sputtering, in spite of all he was doing. To me, that sounds about right. Hmmm, I keep strangling this golden goose, and oddly enough, it quit laying gold eggs. Go figure.

Nothing wrong with union workers wanting better pay or conditions. But like liberals, they took the Detroit economic machine for granted. There's plenty of blame to go around for why we now have a rust belt instead of what once was a thriving economy. But closed-shop unions didn't help.

I guess then you'll be surprised when the unemployment rate goes below 7%, which is what I'm expecting unless the House GOP forces a default on the national debt, and I'm confident that Boehner's not crazy and won't allow it. The economy is actually much less tightly regulated than it was 40-50 years ago, and corporations have been enjoying record profits and a Bull market in stocks during the Obama administration, so your claim that he has been strangling it is nonsense. We had the worse economic downturn since the Depression, and demand has been slow to recover as people unwind their debt and many have remained unemployed. Government spending buy the states, a huge total of US government spending, has dropped significantly due to the loss of revenue, which further depressed demand. Companies aren't going to hire new employees if the demand isn't there to meet. But now more people are getting hired, a need to replace things like old cars or for new housing has built up, which has set the stage for a long, steady recovery. So we will see who understands the economy better.

> I guess then you'll be surprised when the unemployment rate goes below 7%, which is what I'm expecting...

It would be about time. But they've been predicting that since March '09.

But if it actually happens, do temper your jubilation with the fact that millions have simply left the work force since 2009 -- some 9.5 million. 7% *should* be an achievable goal, given a smaller workforce.

And also remember, that Bush's 5.5% unemployment rate back around 2003 was considered part of a "jobless recovery" and quite an unimpressive performance. That's hope and change for you. The unemployment rates that once were appalling are now appealing.

> and demand has been slow to recover as people unwind their debt and many have remained unemployed.

And in the mechanistic liberal view, "demand", like corporations and wealth and factories and businesses, is some strange force of nature, like the weather. Like people just woke up in 2009 and decided they wanted to consume less.

Demand is down because faith in the economy is down. Why is faith in the economy down? Lots of reasons. Does the fact that government is spending trillions it doesn't have weigh on people's minds? Does the fact that bond owners were robbed at gunpoint by the O administration and the unions have an effect on investors? Does the fact that any federal agency can swoop in at any time and take millions in inventory (e.g., Gibson guitars) for breaking trumped-up regulations affect corporate decision-making? Does preparing for ObamaCare put a lot of uncertainty in the minds of corporate decision-makers?

Does the government have any respect at all for our institutions? Don't answer that, we already have an answer these past couple of weeks.

Unlike religion, the economy isn't about faith, its about money. Lack of demand was due to lack of money. Europe has tried your "faith based" approach to economic recovery, imposing strict austerity to restore "confidence", and its been a disaster. The majority of the electorate voted to relect the President because the economy is recovering, as much as you'd like to deny it. Right now all the economic indicators point to continued job creation and higher consumer confidence. I know that's disappointing news for the Right, but conservatives may have to get used to it. Here's a little advice, the Democrats tried being the party of gloom and doom back in the 1980's, and it doesn't really work well.

The way people feel about the economy has not effect on how they will spend.

Yep, we just went hunting in the woods one day and bagged this big contraption called the economy. It's a big machine that has its own inputs, outputs, functions, procedures, and does not at all respond to people's interactions, or their emotions or their faith.

Liberals don't take the economy for granted; I'm just pointing out basic laws of supply and demand. People spend money to get goods and services. People work to provide goods and services in order to get paid money. When people have less money, they spend less for goods and services, so there is less need for work to produce goods and services, so the number of jobs drops. When people have more money, then they buy more goods and services, which requires more work to be done so people are hired to do it. It really is that simple. When people overthink it, they get ideas such as that by slashing government spending they can restore "confidence" which will cause investors to hire people to work even though the sharp drop in spending has reduced the demand for that work. This logic has produced Depression level unemployment in much of Europe. What gives people "faith" in the economy is money they can earn and spend.

"If the government did all of our spending for us, would we finally be where you want to be?"

Of course not. But when there is a sharp downturn in private demand, the government can take up the slack to ameliorate the crisis. The stimulus helped save millions of jobs, but because the downturn was much more severe than people realized in early 2009, it was insufficient to take up all the slack. Then when it ran its course, government spending, especially by the states which took severe revenue hits, was cut, lessening demand and slowing the recovery. Lately its been showing greater strength while Europe has slipped back into recession. And Japan has experienced some strong growth since its new government cut taxes and enacted new stimulus measures at the end of last year. There hasn't been new stimulus by the Obama Administration since the GOP took control of the House; the federal government has been focused on deficit reduction for the last couple of years. However the housing market, a big source of jobs which was devastated in the downturn, is now growing strongly, which will fuel continued job growth. But if you like you can give credit to the sequester which has helped bring a steep drop in the budget deficit.

> The stimulus helped save millions of jobs, but because the downturn was much more severe than people realized in early 2009...

That's not a fact, but a proposition, and an unprovable one at that, because we don't have another control economy sitting in the petri dish on the next table, with which to try a different approach.

So your remark resembles propaganda more than serious analysis.

What is undeniable fact, though, is that what the "experts" who predicted the results of the stimulus were wrong wrong wrong... and in the wrong direction -- casting dooubt on the wisdom of that approach.

> And Japan has experienced some strong growth since its new government cut taxes and enacted new stimulus measures at the end of last year.

That may be the first time I've ever heard you say anything good about a tax cut. Who are you and what have you done with the real KyCobb?

"That's not a fact, but a proposition, and an unprovable one at that, because we don't have another control economy sitting in the petri dish on the next table, with which to try a different approach."

Well, we do, Europe. They have focused on austerity. The European Central Bank has only one objective, price stability, whereas the Federal Reserve also has an obligation to stimulate full employment. And our economic performance has been much better than theirs.

"That may be the first time I've ever heard you say anything good about a tax cut. Who are you and what have you done with the real KyCobb?"

Tax cuts focused on the rich don't provide much stimulus since they already have all the money they can spend. But the President's stimulus included broad-based tax cuts, such as the payroll tax holiday which unfortunately expired at the end of last year. Anything that gets cash into the hands of lots of people who will spend it helps the economy. Tax cuts for the rich financed by deep cuts in domestic spending, as the Ryan Budget proposes, are counterproductive.

Apparently, the IRS's Lois Lerner was once the head of the Federal Election Commission. The article at the end of this link makes the case that asking intrusive and inappropriate questions regarding one's religious faith is not an aberration with her, but rather her signature move...

The Christian Coalition was being investigated. Contains partial transcript of a deposition by Ollie North. The interviewer had a profound interest of Ollie and some of his contacts including Pat Robertson, over the vehement objections of Ollie's counsel.

In case you haven't been following the news, a bunch of murderous... er, youths have been rioting for a week in Sweden. The police have pretty much tolerated it. But they finally did do something: they forced groups of homeowners, furious that the police weren't protecting them and determined to do the job themselves, back into their houses.

And a couple of, uh, youths hacked a British soldier to death in the streets with knives and cleavers. Then they strutted around waiting for about twenty minutes. There were even police on the scene, but they didn't do anything until someone with a gun showed up.

But that doesn't mean the British police did nothing. Why, they arrested two individuals who put up "racist" and insensitive "derogatory religious" remarks about the perps.

So don't tell me Muslims aren't scary. Tell the Swedish and British public. If only they were more tolerant, they wouldn't be having these, er, misunderstandings with the, uh, youths.

> And Japan has experienced some strong growth since its new government cut taxes and enacted new stimulus measures at the end of last year.

For the whole picture, read:

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/05/26/brave-new-world/

> "The result over time in Japan has been a “super-aging” society unprecedented in history. “By 2030, one in every three people will be 65+ years and one in five people 75+ years.” And the economic implications of that collapse mean that the “universal coverage in public pension and health insurance [achieved] in 1961″ will be without any means of support. Japan has been living on deficit spending for decades. Today it spends 25% of its state budget on meeting interest payments on bonds alone. And now for the first time the interest on those bonds is rising. The game is up, or nearly so."

> The first amendment will protect your tight to express your disapproval of ssm.

The First Amendment seems to be on rather shaky ground these days...

> "The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”"

> I guess then you'll be surprised when the unemployment rate goes below 7%, which is what I'm expecting...

It's Wednesday, July 3, 2013, and it was just announced this morning that, such is President Obama's faith in the restorative economic powers of ObamaCare, he is delaying (at the request of the business community) its implementation for another year.

Either Obama is not as optimistic about its economic impact as KyCobb, or for some strange reason he thinks KyCobb is correct about its wonderful benefits but just doesn't think we deserve them quite yet.

Should have added that this postponement takes the Obamacare implementation past the midterm elections.

My, uh, congratulations to Obama and the Democrats for selflessly postponing the Obamacare implementation, thus sacrificing the great boon that a grateful electorate would have inflicted on their electoral prospects.

Very tricksie.

So what could have motivated this postponement? Given that it will be such a blessing to the job market and it is so popular with the voters, you'd think the Democrats should want to implement it, like, this afternoon.